SAA

VIDEO GAMES AND ARCHAEOLOGY
Figure 2. Survey results indicating the importance, enjoyment, and representativeness of archaeology in games for all respondents. Image by VALUE.
collecting artifacts: “It is more looting than actual archaeology.”
Secondly, respondents stated that “real” archaeology is
not exciting or not popular enough for games: “Archaeology
is not really exciting for most people, while video games
should be exciting.” And finally, the biggest issue relating to
representation was that video games are fiction, far from the
truth or inaccurate: “Lots of things are popularized and not
correct.”
There were a few people who responded positively on the
potential benefits of representing archaeology in video
games: “If done in a proper way it can be very useful for
archaeology” and “It can create a lot of public awareness.”
How can archaeology in games still be enjoyable, while also
contributing some educational, scholarly, and societal value?
Our survey did not provide an answer to this, but we have
some suggestions based on our engagements with the intersections
of games and archaeology over the past year. These
took the form of thematic sessions in which issues of archaeological
importance were featured in discussions while playing
games that illustrated these topics.
Recent Examples
It is quite common for games to attempt to reconstruct monuments
or cities of the past. With some notable exceptions
(i.e. the Assassin’s Creed series), this is done without significant
contributions by archaeologists and historians. This has
resulted in chronological errors, inaccurate representations,
and false perceptions of past societies. Dunstan Lowe, by surveying
different games, has written about the practice of representing
the Greek and Roman past as a landscape of ruins
rather than as living cities (2013:84–85).
There are other examples of games that seek to provide
authenticity in their gaming worlds through extensive historical
and material research. A recent example, released in
2014, is Valiant Hearts by Ubisoft Montpellier. This game is
set in World War I, a rare setting for a video game. It roughly
follows the course of history, taking players through actual
events like the battle of the Somme and the battle of the
Marne. The perspective of the game is viewed through the
personal stories of a few ordinary people who struggle on
opposite sides of the war rather than a top-down approach of
the player commanding armies and battles. 5 To give players
November 2016 • The SAA Archaeological Record
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